info("timezoneabbreviations") function

info("timezoneabbreviations")

The info(“timezoneabbreviations”) function returns a dictionary of time zone abbreviations supported by the system.

Description

This function returns a dictionary of time zone abbreviations supported by the system. Use this formula to get a carriage return separated list of the available abbreviations.

arraysort(listdictionarykeys(info("timezoneabbreviations")),cr())

Here is a partial list of abbreviations.

ADT
AKDT
AKST
ART
AST
BDT
...
...
...
EDT
EEST
EET
EST
GMT
GST
...
...
...
PST
SGT
UTC
WAT
WEST
WET
WIT

This is just a small sampling of the list – at the time this was written, there were 48 recognized time zone abbreviations. This list may change over time, so you should always use this function to determine the current list of abbreviations supported on your system.

The dictionary contains not only the list of abbreviation names, but the city associated with each abbreviation. You can use the getdictionaryvalue( to return the primary city associated with an abbreviation. For example CET (Central European Time) is associated with Paris.

getdictionaryvalue(info("timezoneabbreviations"),"CET") ☞ Europe/Paris
getdictionaryvalue(info("timezoneabbreviations"),"MDT") ☞ America/Denver
getdictionaryvalue(info("timezoneabbreviations"),"AKDT") ☞ America/Juneau
getdictionaryvalue(info("timezoneabbreviations"),"SGT") ☞ Asia/Singapore

Time zone abbreviations can be used with the converttimezone( function, but be careful. In some cases there may be more than one time zone region associated with a single abreviation. For example MST (Mountain Standard Time) and MDT (Mountain Daylight Time) are associated with both Denver and Phoenix. However Denver and Phoenix handle daylight savings time differently, so at some times of the year, you’ll get innacurate conversions if you specify the time zone with an abbreviation. Whenever possible you should use the primary city to specify the zone instead of an abbreviation.

Please note that the list of time zone abbreviations is maintained by Apple, if you have suggestions for additional zone abbreviations, please direct them to Apple.

See Also

converttimezone( -- converts a time or superdate from one time zone to another.
daylightsavingstimeoffset( -- returns the current daylight saving time offset of the specified time zone.
info("localtimezone") -- returns the local time zone for the current location of your computer.
info("timezones") -- returns a list of time zone regions recognized by the system.
nextdaylightsavingstimetransition( -- returns the next date on which a transition to or from daylight savings time occurs.
timezoneabbreviation( -- returns the abbreviation of the specified time zone.
timezonename( -- returns the continent and city of the specified time zone.

History

Version	Status	Notes
10.2	New	New in this version